


between those teeth

by greatwonfidence



Category: Video Blogging RPF, supermega
Genre: Anxiety, Dimensional Travel, Gen, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-08-10 05:03:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20129803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greatwonfidence/pseuds/greatwonfidence
Summary: Matt and Ryan jump to a horrifying alternate dimension. When they come back, they have to come to grips with what they saw and did there. Matt has a harder time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey y’all it’s been a while!!! I wanted to try something long-ish and a lil magical, and I’ve been thinking about how cool the concept of dimensional travel is. hope somebody enjoys!!

“Ryan didn’t pick up either,” Jackson says, shoving his phone back into his pocket. Harrison nods and pounds on the door two, three more times. Heavy, urgent.

“Alright guys, if you don’t open up in five seconds, we’re breaking in.” He counts down, loudly and clearly, and once he hits zero he rears back and rams his shoulder into the door, hard enough to bruise.

“Wait!“ Jackson grabs his brother’s arm before he can go again. He points to the latch handle. “Spring lock. You got a card?”

“Shit. Yeah.” Harrison fishes an old arcade card out of his wallet. His brother applies pressure to the door for him while he slides the card in, maneuvering it until they hear the explicit click of the lock popping open. 

They barge into the kitchen, yelling their friends’ names. There’s no sign of disarray in the apartment until they reach the living room - they see Matt first, and then Ryan, both lying motionless on the carpet.

“Fucking Christ.” Harrison turns Ryan over so that he’s on his back like Matt, and confirms that both of them are breathing. “We’ve gotta jump wherever they went.”

Jackson knows it’s coming before he says it, so he picks up the glasses of salt water from the carpet and hands one to his brother.

“What do you think they incanted?” Jackson asks as they sit down across from each other. He places his left hand on top of Matt’s - the indicator to follow.

“Something dumb,” Harrison replies, mirroring his brother by placing his own left hand on top of Ryan’s. In their rights, they clink the glasses together, and then swiftly drink from them. Only a few seconds pass between them putting the emptied glasses down and their bodies dropping, the jump complete.

Dimensional travel should, arguably, be accompanied with shimmering curtains of light and the space version of cash register sounds. It should be warm and exciting and bright, very bright. But it isn’t, and so when Matt finds himself back in his apartment after the push, back in his original dimension, it isn’t beautiful and ethereal; it’s dark and loud, and it’s heavy on his legs and slapping him in the face.

No, that’s Jackson. Jackson is slapping him in the face, utilizing it to punctuate each word he scolds with.

“What! The! Fuck! Is! Wrong! With! You!”

Matt blearily opens his eyes once the barrage stops and turns his head in a desperate, panicked attempt to find Ryan. The sight of him lying past their now-empty glasses just a few feet away (albeit with eyes still shut) quells the fear in his belly for a moment, until the full memory of where they left off hits him.

“Ryan,” Matt gasps out, caught unaware by how hard it would be to speak again. His tongue feels like a new weight he suddenly must carry. “Ryan’s leg, he- knife-“

“He’s fine,” Harrison‘s voice comes suddenly from the next room. Matt looks up from his place on the floor (he’ll get up once he has the energy) to see his shoddy old first aid kit in Harrison’s hands.

“How do you know?” Matt asks, accusatory. Jackson slaps him again, seizing his attention. This also leads Matt to notice that Jackson is kneeling on top of his legs and keeping him down.

“What were you thinking, Matt?” Jackson asks again, scoldingly, like a parent catching their child doing something dishonest. 

“Is Ryan really okay? There was so much blood...” He’s too distraught to address all the blame being placed on him. Jackson’s face softens against his will.

“Yeah. Just gotta patch him up.” He watches his brother’s handiwork now, unable to look at Matt’s scared, guilty face. He keeps his voice stern. “But you’re both lucky Harrison and I found you.”

“I know,” Matt says, voice breaking. Ryan starts to stir, eyebrows furrowed.

“And you’re lucky that dimension wasn’t worse,” Harrison adds. “You had no idea how to control where you were jumping to.” He taps the back of his hand against Ryan’s chest as he blinks awake. He says, a little kinder now, “Welcome back, dumbass.”

Ryan groans at the lasting pain. He grumbles, “I don’t know what could’ve been worse about that.” His hand traces down his thigh to where Harrison has already finished applying the bandages.

“Change those once a day for a week or so. You probably don’t want to go to a doctor and have to explain how it happened.” Ryan shakes his head no and thanks his friend. Harrison stands up, smoothing out his shirt as he moves. He motions to Jackson to help Matt up, but the gesture is missed, as he’s busy tracking Matt’s expression with concern.

Matt watches Ryan’s face carefully. It’s not a stunning smile he’s sporting, or a tragically sad expression; it’s merely an uncomfortable grimace, a displeased wrinkling of the nose with an aggrieved downturn of the mouth. But he’s here, he’s Ryan, his best friend in the whole world. Matt is so overcome with emotion that as soon as Jackson tells them “cheer up, you made it out alive,” he bursts into tears because  _ God, what if we hadn’t?_

Jackson and Harrison stay for another hour or so, alternating between comforting their friends and berating them for what they’d done. As though they needed to be told that dimensional jumping without a guide was as close to a guaranteed death sentence as they’d get. (Maybe they did need the reminder.)

“What did you see?” Harrison asks, when they’ve all moved to the couches and tongues don’t feel like lead anymore and everyone has a bottle of (saltless) water and can breathe a little.

“Before you guys got there, not a lot,” Ryan says simply.

Matt squints. Is he trying to lie? He supplies a little more detail by describing the dark, winding tunnels they were alone in for most of the trip. But since it seems Ryan wants to, he leaves out the guards grabbing them and dragging them to the Commander’s center.

“Do you guys know... like... what that was about?” Ryan asks. Matt can’t tell what exactly he’s referring to - the context of the dimension? Who was in charge and why? How they ended up in that one?

“I guess some kind of dystopian future,” Jackson answers. “Was that Ross on the floor?”

Matt tightens his grip on his water bottle, feeling the plastic crinkle and cave under his fingers. Ryan nods. Is he also picturing Ross’s dead body? Had Harrison and Jackson noticed the blood?

“The incantation you use to jump usually matters,” Harrison says. He reaches over and takes Matt’s hand lightly, encouraging him to loosen it. When he complies, he takes the misshapen bottle and places it on the table. “Do you remember what you said before you jumped?”

“No,” Ryan says, quickly. Matt looks at him, eyebrows furrowed. His face is unreadable.

It’s clear their friends don’t quite believe it, but they let it slide. Jackson shrugs and blames their inexperience, saying that whatever it was, the jump just didn’t work right. The air never stops feeling like the saltwater they had drank, tense and suffocating.

After one last emotional check-in, the brothers go, leaving Matt and Ryan alone in their apartment once again.

Matt closes the door and leans back against it, exhaling a sigh of relief that the interrogation is over. They mean well, he tells himself, but he thinks he needs space right now more than anything. Time to think about what happened.

He steps back into the living room to find Ryan still in the same spot on the couch, staring at the floor.

“You okay?” Matt asks.

“No,” Ryan answers.

“That’s okay.”

“Is it?”

“I don’t know. I think so.”

Ryan finally meets his eyes, for the first time since they jumped back, and they’re filled with grief and pain and Matt has no fucking idea what to do to help.

He settles on asking, “What do you need?” which is met by a snort from his friend.

“I need for Ross to un-stab me, for starters.” Ryan laughs, emptily. His hand hovers over where the bandage is.

Matt sits back down next to him. Despite their careers being in entertainment, Ryan isn’t actually a very public person, even with his friends. He’d much rather bottle up his actual feelings and crack jokes about what bothers him. So to see him blankly gazing at his feet and only half-heartedly jesting hurts, in a weird way.

“What about you?” He asks, catching Matt off guard.

“Huh?”

“I mean, you... you know.” Ryan makes a stabbing motion. Matt closes his eyes to stop himself from picturing Ross’s face, but it doesn’t work. He holds his wrist still with his other hand to forget the feeling of cruelly and unnecessarily twisting the knife after plunging it into-

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m fine, I think.”

“It’s okay if you’re not,” Ryan mimics playfully, but he means it for him. Matt laughs a little as tears spring back to his eyes, and he turns away to hide, as though his shaking shoulders won’t give him away.

Arms come around his body from the side and he can’t find the strength to fight them away. Soft black hair falls against the side of his face when Ryan lays his head against Matt’s back, hugging him loosely enough that it doesn’t feel forced, but tightly enough that Matt feels every bit of comfort and love his friend is trying to convey.

“I thought... I thought I was going to lose you,” Matt sobs. Ryan’s thumb strokes his upper arm comfortingly.

“You protected me.” Ryan whispers into his friend’s shirt.

Matt stares blankly ahead, wiping his face with his sleeve. Had he? He had to watch his best friend get stabbed before he could do anything. And then what was that anything he did? Just murder, that’s all. And not just someone who was their attacker; someone who was-  _is_ a close friend of theirs. All Matt gained from this experience is dimensional travel-related trauma and the knowledge that he could kill someone he cares about.

He doesn’t like knowing that.

“Work is gonna feel a little weird, huh?” Ryan says.

“Oh, fuck.” He sniffles. He hadn’t even thought about what it would be like to see Actual Ross again.

“It wasn’t _him_, though.”

“Yeah.” He feels off. 

Ryan lets go of his friend and stands to stretch, and swiftly is reminded of his new injury and winces. Matt jumps up immediately.

“You okay, dude?”

“Yeah- fuck. Sorry,” Ryan grumbles. “Just stung is all. I think I’m gonna go lay down.”

Matt peers down at his watch. “At five PM on a Saturday?”

Ryan shrugs and pulls a face, which is so characteristically Ryan that Matt could almost believe they hadn’t nearly died less than two hours ago. (The limp gives it away, though.)

They both go off to their respective bedrooms. Matt sits at his desk with the intention to do work, but he can’t focus long enough to get anything done. He ends up laying in bed after a long deliberation between that and getting up to make dinner.

He scrolls through Twitter to distract himself. He’s more grateful now than ever that he follows so many artists - he’s cheered up by all the lovely designs on his timeline. He almost convinces himself he’s feeling well enough to do some editing.

Then he sees one of Ross’s tweets and his heart drops into his stomach.

It’s not even anything strange. It just says that he’s going live on Twitch, accompanied by a photo of himself. But he isn’t smiling in the photo; he’s giving the camera this intense stare, which isn’t uncommon for him, and yet it resembles how he looked in the other dimension much, much too closely. Matt feels guilty for it, but he mutes his friend’s account. He’ll fix it in a day or two.

His phone vibrating in his hand a minute or so later startles him more than he’d like to admit.

jackson tucker (8:09 PM)

Hey did you guys eat yet

Me and harry are going to curry house in a bit

Matt does wonder what Ryan is up to, and also when it got so late - it feels like they only parted ways a short time ago. Their rooms are close enough that he’d have heard if Ryan left, so he’s sure he hasn’t eaten yet either. But he has no appetite, and after everything, he’s too exhausted to think about even standing up right now, let alone going out.

Me (8:11 PM)

I’m gonna stay home tonight but text Ryan, he might wanna go

Thanks for the invite though.

jackson tucker (8:12 PM)

Ok drink water love you

Matt snorts and types back a  love you too . He plugs his phone in and turns over, because if he’s going to be moping inside all night, he might as well get refreshed in the process.

He listens for the sounds of Ryan leaving his room, but if he does, it’s long after Matt falls asleep.

They don’t work on Sundays, so they just see each other around the apartment if they happen to both be out of their rooms at the same time.

Matt wakes up from a dreamless, unsatisfying sleep around seven, so he quietly ambles toward the kitchen. He almost yelps when he kicks over one of the glasses from yesterday - they’d completely forgone cleaning up after themselves. He stoops down to pick them up and is suddenly hit with the visceral, physical memory of clinking their glasses together, naive laughter echoing; the memory of looking into each other’s eyes, and their last words before they jumped.

“A dimension where we’re important,” Ryan says, currently, stepping out of the kitchen. Matt starts for real this time, nearly dropping one of the glasses. He presses the back of his hand to his chest.

“Jesus, dude, you’re going to kill me.”

“Do you think that’s why we ended up in that one?” Ryan asks, reaching his hands out to take the glasses. He carries them to the sink while Matt fixes himself a cup of coffee.

“Why did you tell Harrison you didn’t remember what we said?” Matt asks, after a moment’s deliberation. Ryan shrugs behind him, out of sight.

“You didn’t correct me.”

“I didn’t want to, like, rat you out or whatever.” He gives Ryan a sincere look over his shoulder, a silent  _please be truthful with me._

Ryan sighs. “I’m the one that said it. I didn’t want to  _know_ that it was my fault. I was hoping it was chance that put us there.”

Matt nods. He spoons sugar into his mug, staring into the swirl of the coffee.

They go back into their bedrooms and don’t say anything else to each other until Ryan comes in around five to ask if Matt wants to order pizza. He agrees, and they watch a movie together when it comes.

It’s nice. It’s nicer than Matt thinks he deserves right now. He still feels guilty for not jumping to action soon enough, for not saying anything to counteract Ryan’s strangely self-sabotaging incantation. He doesn’t want to bring it up again and upset Ryan, and it seems he’s paying the same respect, so all they do is watch this terrible B-horror that Matt can’t pay any attention to because just because he’s not talking about it doesn’t mean he isn’t  _thinking_ about it, and oh _man_, is he thinking about it. He can’t stop thinking about it. Every time he closes his eyes he pictures Ross’s face as Matt stabs him in retaliation, every time there’s silence his brain supplies somebody’s gasp of pain - usually Ryan’s - and it fills his ears until he has to concentrate to hear whatever new sounds have started occurring.

“Matt,” Ryan repeats, not for the first time.

“Wh- huh? Sorry,” Matt shakes his head, opting to ignore the waver in his voice. “Yeah?”

“I need a favor.”

“Of course, man, what is it?”

“Can you help me change the bandage?” Ryan looks strangely embarrassed to be asking. More than that, actually, considering he’s not even meeting Matt’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Matt says, reaching for the remote to pause the movie, but as soon as he touches it he realizes it‘s already ended.

“You didn’t miss much, the ending sucked.” Ryan says. He stands and heads for the bathroom. Matt follows wordlessly.

They’re no strangers to intimacy. He doesn’t need to look away while Ryan discards his shirt in a desperate attempt at retaining his heterosexuality; he just waits for his cue to jump in.

“I feel like this is gonna hurt,” Ryan says as he starts picking at the edges of the medical tape. “Is the first aid kit in here?”

“Oh, wait, I don’t think I put it back. Hang on.” Matt trots back into the living room and surveys the floor until he finds it next to Harrison’s abandoned jacket, which nobody has mentioned him leaving yet. He makes a mental reminder to let him know and takes the first aid kit with him back to Ryan.

When he returns, Ryan is breathing a little funny. He’s holding a wet bundle of toilet paper in his hand, very slightly reddened. The wound itself is exposed to the air, and it seems like he’s pointedly avoiding looking at it.

“You good?” Matt asks, clicking the kit open. Ryan nods.

“I’m just trying to get dry blood off.”

“Ew,” Matt jokes. He brings out the tube of antibacterial cream and searches for a big enough bandage. Ryan gasps in pain and stops patting his wound again, prompting Matt to finally get a good look at it.

It’s pink and raw, but to his surprise, the pierced skin is torn smoothly. No jagged edges, just a slight straight-down drag. He wonders if that means it’ll heal faster.

“It’s okay,” Matt says reassuringly (maybe to Ryan, maybe to himself) while he washes his hands quickly.

“Is it clean enough?” Ryan asks. Matt looks as closely as he can without feeling sick and nods. He unwraps the bandage and squeezes some of the cream onto it.

“You want me to put it on?” Matt asks. Ryan shakes his head and takes it from him, handling the adhesive bits carefully.

“I’ve got it. Can you get the tape? In case it doesn’t stick right.”

“Yeah.” Matt waits to be needed and acts when he is. They’re quiet with a concentration, and to cut the tension in the air, Matt finally allows himself to say “I’m sorry.”

Ryan looks up and squints. “Why?”

“For not stopping him,” he answers. “You shouldn’t be treating a stab wound right now.”

“I have to treat it or it’ll get infected.” A smile breaks on Ryan’s face at his own joke. Matt rolls his eyes. “Come on. You don’t need to fuckin’ apologize for anything that happened. Okay? You were great.”

Matt drums his fingers on the edge of the sink. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

They watch one more movie, and Matt pays a little more attention this time.

Judgment day is upon them. Or Monday, as some might call it. They drink their coffee together as usual, they carpool as usual - everything is as normal and routine as it gets, with the small exception of Ryan having to change the bandage from his stab wound. That’s new for the week. He manages it by himself this time, though.

Matt knows Ryan has no desire to talk about... The Incident. The only discussions they’ve had have been short and prompted by Matt, and mostly consisted of Ryan comforting him. But it’s encompassing nearly all of his thoughts; how is he supposed to act normal now?

_It isn’t even the worst thing that could’ve happened,_ he thinks to himself bitterly.  _I’m being such a baby. There are people who deal with worse every fuckin’ day. _ He tips his head back against the headrest and peers out the window. He tries to count all of the pedestrians he sees, hoping it will give him something to focus on and calm down with, but the car is moving too fast for his eyes to keep up.

They arrive at the office too quickly. Ryan turns off the car, but he doesn’t move to get out. Matt picks up his backpack from between his legs and rests it on his lap, and waits.

“You okay?” He asks after a few seconds.

“Yeah,” Ryan says, then corrects himself, “well, no. Mostly.”

“It’ll be okay, right?” Matt asks, immediately cringing at himself for asking for reassurance yet again.

But Ryan is kind, and gives him a grounding pat on the leg. “We’ll be fine. Just... think about other stuff, I guess.”

“I’m thinking about making you my new therapist,” Matt quips. Ryan shakes his head and opens the car door, wincing when he puts his injured leg down.

Matt always greets everyone when he walks through the office. If he were some new-age business owner, he’d say something about how it cultivates an air of friendliness in the office, which breeds happiness and leads to higher morale and better productivity. But he isn’t, he’s just an employee that likes being nice. 

So he says hello to Jori, then to Dan and Arin when they walk past the kitchen. Dan just waves, then nearly chokes trying to swallow his food quickly enough.

“Ryan, you’re-“ He coughs, then collects himself. “Sorry. You’re limping?”

Ryan visibly tenses. Matt wonders if they should’ve planned for this.

“Full contact sports aren’t my thing, I guess,” Ryan says, adding a comedic shrug to really sell it. Arin chuckles.

“Don’t quit your day job then,” he says, then with a more serious tone, “Really, don’t quit your day job. Please.” Dan laughs.

Matt waves his greeting to Brent, and then Leighton, and another intern whose name he hasn’t learned yet, all without further incident as Ryan shuffles inconspicuously behind him. When they get through to the editing bay, Ryan sits down with a labored sigh.

“Yeah?” Matt prompts.

“So social so early.”

“I could’ve struck up a whole conversation with everybody if you wanted to be social.”

“I wish we could close the door.” Ryan tips his head back to gesture to the door to their little room that’s just theirs. The office generally has an open-door policy, due to the collaborative nature. They don’t tend to get a lot of visitors during the work day, but now that he’s brought it up, Matt feels for him in his desire for solitude.

“I don’t think anyone will get mad if we do,” Matt suggests. Ryan shrugs; a silent  _your call _as he boots his computer up.

Through no one in particular’s fault, the door ends up closed. There’s a hallway leading up to the room, so it’s not an especially noisy area to begin with, but the extra level of quiet is nice. All Matt hears outside of his headphones is a quiet chuckle from Ryan every now and then, and the whir of the AC when it automatically boots up after a couple of hours.

Then comes the hitch. Someone throws the door open, slamming it against the wall with enough force to jar both editors out of their groove, and shouts in a too-familiar voice:

“Open-door policy, ya dickheads!”

Matt is sure Ross meant to be funny. Maybe he thought he’d interrupt at an interesting time, like while they were recording something. He can barely hear Ross laughing and excusing himself past the ringing, and his face feels hot, and his heart is pounding, and it takes everything in his power to wait for Ross to step away from the doorway before he pushes himself up out of the chair to run past him.

_Coward_, he chides himself through this new wall of anxiety. _Coward. Coward._

He means to head for the bathroom to have his panic attack in peace, but he ends up barreling directly into Arin. He stumbles backward and every one of his nerves is on fire.

“Whoa, sorry-“ Arin’s voice shifts when he finds Matt’s distressed face. “Matt? What’s wrong?”

“Noth- uh, nothing.” He tries to move past Arin, but he’s blocking the way.

“You’re really pale. You should sit down.”

“I’m fine, Arin!” Matt snaps. “I’m just anxious, that’s- that’s all, okay? I’m just taking a walk, please move out of the way so I can-“

“Come in my office, okay?” Arin asks. “You can pace around in there and nobody will see you.”

Matt hugs his arms closer to himself and nods, following his boss. Arin’s office isn’t huge, but there’s enough room to shuffle around if he wanted to pace. The door closes behind them and Arin sits down at his desk. He watches Matt stand still by the doorway for a few seconds too long before he gestures at the empty chair across from him.

“You wanna talk?” Arin asks. Matt taps his fingers against his arm while he tries to even out his breathing, deliberating. He sits down and has to fight to not visibly seethe at the piteous way Arin is looking at him. 

“Please stop looking at me like that.”

“Sorry, like what?”

“The way you’re looking at me. Down. Like... like I’m a stupid child.”

“I don’t think that way of you,” Arin says, shaking his head. “I’m sorry. You looked upset and I was hoping I could help. If you don’t want me to, though, that’s okay. I just want to-“

“I did something fucked up.”

“-be a resour- huh?” Arin blinks. “What did you- what happened?”

Matt breaks. He tells Arin everything - from the incantation to the long hallways, to the guards grabbing them, to the meeting with Ross.

He wants so badly to leave what happens next out of it, but he doesn’t. In as much detail as his rattled brain will supply (which is plenty), he recounts how the fight went. Arin is silent the entire time, just nodding to encourage Matt to continue.

“And then the Tucker brothers came after us, because they knew we were stupid and would try to jump without them. And they got us out.” Matt stares at his hands folded in his lap. He has more to say, but there’s no air left in his lungs and no drive left in his heart.

He waits, and eventually Arin gets the hint that he’s finished. He clears his throat.

“That’s a lot to take in,” Arin says, slowly.

“I know. I’m sorry.” Matt’s gaze stays down. “I was working and I felt fine, but then Ross burst into the room and scared me and my body just- I had to leave the room.”

Arin nods. “You think Ross might be upset by you just bolting when he came in?”

Matt blinks in confusion. Is Arin understanding him? “I mean, maybe. I don’t know if he necessarily knew it was because of him.”

“Are you planning on just avoiding him?”

“I don’t know.” Matt folds his arms again, recedes in on himself. “I don’t really have a plan.”

“Mm. Okay. So, I think the key to handling this sort of thing right is to not punish Ross for behavior that wasn’t his.”

“I’m not punish-“ Matt starts to defend himself, but Arin interrupts with an “ah.”

“You know Suzy jumps sometimes, right?”

“I... didn’t.”

“She does. Like once a week. For fun,” Arin adds. “She tells me about the places she goes. She tells me about the other mes she meets. Sometimes I’m not nice in those other dimensions.”

Matt waits for this information to become meaningful.

“But she can separate it from our relationship. It’s like having a nightmare, and when you wake up-“

“Oh, fuck you!” He can’t stop himself. “A nightmare? A  _nightmare_, Arin? He almost killed Ryan. I- I killed  _him._ I told you. I thought-“ He hates how his voice wavers. “I thought you believed me, Arin.”

There’s silence in the room for far, far too long. But then Arin speaks so plainly and with such composure that Matt can’t bring himself to argue.

“I believe that you experienced that. But it was not  _our_ Ross’s fault. If you need the day, take it. But you have to judge people on what _they_ have done, not their counterparts.”

Arin nods with finality to punctuate his speech. Matt stands up and goes to leave. He somehow manages to duck back into the editing room unseen, with Ross nowhere in sight.

“You good?” Ryan asks when he sees Matt shutting his computer down and grabbing up his belongings. “Hey. Where are you going?”

“Sorry, I don’t- I’m sick,” Matt lies. “I’m sorry. I’m calling an Uber.”

“Are you actually sick?” Ryan asks. “Do you- should I-“

“I’m fine. I just need to go home. Sorry.”

He pushes his way out of the office, throwing a “sorry, heading out” over his shoulder when somebody (couldn’t catch who) had called after him.

He’s halfway down the street before he finally calls the Uber to come and get him. He needs to be sure he isn’t followed, and he isn’t - but now that he’s alone, the guilt sets in and there’s nowhere to turn now.

He even left Ryan alone. He always thought he’d have a fight instinct over flight, but even without imminent danger - why hadn’t the threat made him stay? What if Ryan had gotten hurt after he’d run? He wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

What’s he supposed to do now? His only plan was to get out of the office, and now he’s out. Does he go home? All he wants is to talk to Ryan and figure out why he feels so bad, but that’s off the table for now.

The driver honks to get his attention. He’ll just go home and rest, he supposes.

Matt opens the door to their apartment and greets the pets. Ryan’s dog Lego is overjoyed that someone has returned early, but Banana is a typical cat and just swishes his tail in acknowledgment when Matt rubs his head as he walks by.

He tosses his bag onto his bed and flops down next to it. He checks the time on his phone. It’s only noon. Fuck. Everybody’s probably just taking their lunch break right now.

He immediately feels another wave of guilt for leaving. He could’ve stayed. What’s he going to do here? He could’ve wallowed at work, couldn’t he?

He’s got to do something about it, he decides. He picks his phone up again, searching for the contact for his therapist’s office. Maybe he can move his appointment to earlier this week.

Then his phone starts to vibrate and he nearly throws it across the room when he sees Ross’s name across the top.

He can’t do this. He can’t do this.  _Bzzz. Bzzzz. _ It takes a genuine effort to keep calm and wait for the call to go to voicemail. It seems to be taking forever.

_Bzzz. Bzzzz._

_Exposure therapy,_ he thinks to himself suddenly. It worked for his vomit phobia, didn’t it?

_Bzzz. Bzzzz._

Matt squeezes his eyes shut tight and forces himself to think about it. The whole thing.


	2. Chapter 2

It didn’t feel anything like waking up. Matt opened his eyes in an already-standing and active body, as though he dropped into the place of someone else. But he recognized every part of his body as his own, and he recognized Ryan standing to his right. He tried to speak, but found his tongue to be heavy.

Ryan was busy anyways, marveling at the fantastical sight before them. They stood on a platform hundreds of feet high - below them a scant few cars littered the distant asphalt, and before them was a landscape of glass buildings, each at least a few stories shorter than the one they were branched off of.

In fact, when they looked up, neither could make out the top of theirs. It disappeared into the gray sky. Behind them, going into the building, was a doorway with nothing but a stretch of darkness beyond.

“I guess we...” Ryan broke the silence, then cringed at the feeling of speaking. “My fucking mouth, Jesus.”

“Right?” Matt laughed. “Yeah, let’s go.”

On they went, forward, with no light to guide them for several minutes straight. Matt took a moment to glance backwards, past the silhouette of Ryan and to the port of light rapidly decreasing in size. It was then that his face connected with a rough wall.

“Fuck.” He rubbed the scratch on his cheek.

“I think we have to go left now,” Ryan said, stifling a chuckle. 

“Lead the way then, Indiana Jones.”

The maze went on for too long. They dragged their hands against the walls, taking turn after turn blind with no end in sight, until there was a hint of light spilling from around a corner and they booked it.

They were granted about two seconds of reprieve from the darkness to lay eyes on their new drywall surroundings before something made of cloth dropped over their heads.

“Ryan!” Matt shrieked. Arms that were not his friend’s grabbed hold of his own, yanking them behind his back.

“I’m right here!” Ryan yelled back. The bags muffled everything. “What the fuck is this? Let me go!”

“Ryan Magee?” A new voice demanded. 

“Yeah?”

“And Matt Watson?” A second voice.

“Y-Yes, yeah.”

Something electronic crackled. Matt heard one of the men - guards of some kind? - announce “Subjects found” and a string of letters that he could only assume was code for something. And then they were both pushed suddenly, shuffled along against their will. They walked for a few minutes.

“Ryan, are you still-“

“I’m right here,” Ryan repeated, sounding only a yard or so away. Matt found comfort in the fact that they were being carted together, at least.

“Both of you be quiet,” one of the guards chided. “And be respectful to the Commander, or you’ll be sorry.”

“The what?” Ryan asked, and then a door was thrown open and they were both shoved down onto their hands and knees.

“What the fuck!” Matt gasped. The bags were yanked off and he blinked to readjust his vision. Over his shoulder, he saw the guards receding, guns strapped to their backs. His heart leapt into his throat, but he was more shocked when he faced forward again.

At the center of the large, mostly empty room stood a throne. Purple and gold, garish and accompanied by a similarly colored control panel with a few buttons lit up. And in the throne sits a familiar face, looking to the large window covering one wall of the room, undisturbed by the intrusion.

“Holy shit,” Matt breathed.

“Ross?” Ryan asked, incredulous.

Ross jumped in surprise, and when his eyes landed on Matt and Ryan, he burst into hauntingly jovial laughter.

“My friends!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet and approaching them. “Stand up, stand up! No need to be formal.”

Matt dusts himself off as he stands. “What are you doing here?”

Ross laughs again. He says, “Commanding the precinct?” as if it’s ridiculous for them to not understand that.

_“You’re_ the Commander?” Ryan asks.

“Uh, yep!” He rotated his body to show off a futuristic gold emblem embroidered on his jacket. “Isn’t that why you’re here? To answer my invite?”

The nervous glances between his friends were enough to tell him they didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Listen. I know what my reputation is now, especially after the whole...” He gestured with his hands as if he were searching for the right word. “You know... the death count was publicized. But you guys know that I’m only doing what’s-“

“The fucking _what_, Ross?” Ryan had wandered towards the throne to investigate, but harshly whipped back around at the phrase “death count.”

“Did you kill people?” Matt asked quietly. Ross huffed and waved his hands in front of his face.

“No, no, no. Well, uh.” He paused, like he had to look back and consider. “Yes, I suppose I did. But it’s for the greater good. I told you about this in the letter, guys, that’s why you came, right?”

“What, you want us to fucking join you or something?” Matt was impressed by Ryan’s bravery in the situation. To shout in the face of someone called a Commander, in what was presumably his own office... well, Matt could never have done it himself.

Ross shrugged. “Yeah. What, you don’t want to?”

“Fuck no!” Ryan responded. He looked to Matt for support.

“Oh- yeah! Absolutely not!”

Ross sighed. He looked genuinely disappointed. “Well, alright. Sorry to hear that.” He reached under the flap of his jacket and pulled out a long, shining knife.

“Holy shit!” Matt stepped backwards. Ryan put his hands up in defense.

“What are you doing, Ross?”

“Well, you’ve been in here now, and so if you’re not going to work with me... then you’ve got to go.” He shrugged. “Sorry. It’s business, you understand. It’ll be gentler from me than from my friends out there, trust me.”

And then he lunged for Matt. Matt screamed and ducked, narrowly avoiding being struck. Ryan advanced with a shout, but with only his fists and no experience fighting, it was only a matter of time before Ross overpowered him, driving the knife into his thigh.

“Fuck-ing SHIT!” Ryan gasped as the knife was retracted. He instinctively reached down to apply pressure to the slice in his skin, and Ross took the opportunity to grab him by the throat.

Ross was smaller than Ryan, but he was strong, so strong. Maybe it was the strange magic that pulsed through the air of this dimension, or the adrenaline - either way, he lifted Ryan off the ground by his throat with ease. His legs kicked uselessly under him. Matt stepped closer, slowly, cautiously.

“Stay right there, Matt,” Ross said,  warned , and his voice was so distinctly Not Ross that it terrified Matt.

“Fuck you!” Empty defiance was all he could muster.

“You don’t want me to hurt him worse, do you?”

Matt glanced back and forth between his two friends, between the knife and the leaking gash it left in Ryan’s leg. He knew anything he could do would be foolish, so he went for the worst option and dove at the Commander.

Ross dropped Ryan but kept a firmer grip on the knife. It became a blur, but Matt managed to get a solid hold on the other man’s wrist, keeping the blade a safer distance away. They landed on the ground, and he was extremely lucky that the fall knocked the air out of the Commander. His grasp loosened enough so that the knife clattered to the floor a few feet away.

“Ryan!” Matt shouted, pinning Ross as best he could to the ground. But Ryan was busy cradling his bloodied leg, deaf to the fight beside him. Matt shoved blindly and crawled towards the knife, grabbing it at the exact moment a hand seized his ankle.

There was what sounded like a long, continuous scream; Matt wasn’t sure where his own ended and Ross’s began, but once he retracted the blade from Ross’s hand and watched the blood pour out, it felt as though his heart stopped beating and did not begin again until he stabbed him again in the arm, and twice more in the chest, and his friend-turned-adversary went quiet and still.

Matt left the knife stuck in the man’s chest and held himself up on shaking arms. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the mess he’d made of his friend. Ross’s eyes remained open, glazed and lifeless; hair was plastered to his forehead by sweat and a streak of blood from his wounded hand; and his mouth was slack, stuck on what could’ve been a plea for Matt to stop, if he’d been able to hear over the pounding in his eardrums.

But he didn’t hear any plea, and he didn’t stop.

His name being called snapped him out of his daze. He hurriedly pushed himself up off the floor. Ryan stood a few feet away then, holding himself up against the wall. Matt closed the distance between them quickly, anxiety resurfacing.

“Are you okay?” he rushed out, scanning Ryan’s pale face.

“Physically?” Ryan scoffed. “Been better.”

“There you fuckin’ are, Christ.” Both boys spun around in shock to find Harrison in the doorway, wielding the same type of gun they’d seen the guards carrying earlier. A moment later, Jackson caught up. Slowing his jog, he surveyed the room.

“Jesus, what happened here?” He mumbled, more to himself than anyone else.

“You guys having fun, or you wanna get out of here?” Harrison offered.

“Out,” Ryan said, quickly. Matt nodded desperately.

“Come here, then.”

Matt wakes up from his nap when the apartment door slams shut. Lego makes a lot of excited noises, and Matt thinks for just a second that it might be an intruder, but then he hears Ryan’s voice distantly calling for him and he calms down.

He climbs out of bed and finds Ryan sitting on the couch in the living room, petting his dog.

“Hey,” he greets.

“Hi.” Ryan nods in his direction but keeps his eyes on Lego. “Feel better?”

“Yeah.” Matt rubs his arm nervously. “So, listen. About-“

“You’re fine.” He waves his hand dismissively. “I got the videos done.”

Matt notes that Ryan isn’t making eye contact. At all.

“And work went okay?” He asks.

Ryan clicks his tongue and nods. “Yep. Work went as work does.”

“I’m sorry,” Matt starts, but it doesn’t seem like Ryan wants a conversation right now.

“It’s fine.” Ryan stands up and heads for the kitchen. He pauses and looks back to add, “Just don’t ditch me like that again, okay?”

“It won’t happen again,” Matt promises. Ryan gives a thumbs up and disappears into the kitchen.

Can he really promise that? he wonders as he wanders back into his bedroom, closing the door as quietly as possible.

He picks up his phone off of the bed and lets his finger hover over the voicemail Ross left for a while before he can bring himself to listen to it.

”Hey Matt.” His voice is tinny and crackles a little with the poor reception. “I just wanted to call and see if you were alright. I know you kinda bolted earlier, and you looked, um. Upset. So. Let me know if I can help. Okay? Okay. Uh. See you around. Bye.”

Matt tries to picture these kind words coming from Ross’s face, but all he can think of is his Commander’s jacket. 

He lays back down and decides it’s a problem for tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

Matt regrets his decision to bring a lunch he has to heat up on this work day, because now he not only has to take the trip to the break room to get it from the fridge, but he has to stand in there for the ninety seconds it takes his tupperware of noodles to become edible again in the microwave. This will leave him vulnerable to Workplace Niceties for much longer than he thinks he can handle today.

Regardless, he has to eat, so he makes his way into the kitchen when Ryan is taking his break too. He hopes his friend being there will act as a buffer; maybe people will want to talk to Ryan and leave him alone.

He follows Ryan into the empty break room and places his lunch in the microwave, punching the buttons quickly. Ryan takes his sandwich out of the fridge and sits at the table.

“You gonna stay a while?” he asks when Matt doesn’t follow suit. Matt just presses his hip more firmly into the counter, like he could get any further away.

“I’m gonna eat in the editing room.”

“Arin told us to stop doing that.” Ryan takes a bite and then pats the seat next to him. “Come on, just sit and breathe. You’re not going to get more behind if you take a little break.”

Matt could laugh at how poorly Ryan is interpreting his problem, but any semblance of humor for the situation dies in his throat when Ross walks in. He crosses his arms and checks the microwave timer. Another thirty seconds.

“Hey guys,” Ross greets. He roots around inside the fridge and comes out quickly with a can of soda.

“Hi Ross.” Ryan responds once he’s finished chewing. Matt says nothing for far, far too long, but he quickly covers with a mumbled “hey.”

Ross quirks a smile. Is he thinking about the ignored voicemail? “How was your weekend, Matt?”

“Fine,” he answers, staring at the timer now. 6, 5, 4...

“Do anything fun?” He’s definitely thinking about it.

“Nope.” Before it beeps, he opens it up and takes out the tupperware. He holds it up like it’s an explanation for his departure from the room. “See you later.”

Ryan watches him go in disbelief. Ross cracks open his can and takes a sip, pretending not to be watching as well.

“I guess he had a bad weekend,” Ross suggests. Ryan mumbles something like “I guess” and grabs his sandwich, pursuing his friend back to their workspace.

Matt is sitting in his chair with his headphones on and the bowl of noodles cradled in his lap. Ryan throws his sandwich onto the desk, causing enough of a nuisance that Matt looks right up into his pissed face. The headphones come off again.

“What, dude?”

“What? Dude.” Ryan mocks. He gestures his arm wildly in the direction of the break room. “Why were you being a dick?”

“I wasn’t!” Matt jumps to defend himself, but he has nothing to support that.

“Are you just gonna never talk to him again?”

“Not  _never__.”_ His face flushes. He feels so immature.

“Well, you better get over it soon. Like, by dinner tonight.”

Matt squints. “Why is that, Ryan?”

“Don’t get mad.”

“No promises.”

“Well, his first season is completely voiced now. It’s an important milestone, I guess, so...” He shrugs. “We were invited to dinner with the gang to celebrate and I already promised we’d both go.”

Matt glares at him. “Why would you do that?”

“Because he’s our friend, Matt. I know you’re still thinking about it, but this can be a step to stopping thinking about it.” He looks unconvinced, so he just presses on. “Come on. It’s one dinner. You can get through it.”

Matt sighs. “Fine.” He puts the headphones back on and turns back to his computer. He can feel Ryan’s gaze linger on him for a little too long, but he refuses to look back.

It really should be fine, just one dinner. They stop at home first to change into slightly fancier clothes - Matt steps out in a blue button-up and Ryan in a black sweater with khakis.

“Handsome,” Matt says when he sees Ryan’s fresh outfit. Ryan answers by mussing up his friend’s hair, much to his chagrin.

Ryan drives them to the restaurant, where they meet a handful of their coworkers and a bunch of people Matt doesn’t know. He assumes they’re working on the show; the audio is recorded in-house, so he recognizes a few faces from having seen people milling about the office, but he hasn’t talked to any of them.

He pulls out a chair for Ryan (he blames it on the pity he had felt watching him limp up to the table) and takes the seat between him and one of these strangers - which just so happens to be directly across from Ross. He loses Arin in the crowd, but finds him a few people down on his side of the table. 

He’s trying. Really, he is - he sits on his hands after ordering and focuses on listening to the stories everyone is telling. Ross is paying some compliment to who he assumes is a voice actor, and he makes a fist to emphasize the power in something, and that’s enough to get Matt’s heart racing.

_He’s just emoting, or whatever,_ he thinks, coughing first so pressing his hand against his chest doesn’t look as strange. His heart thrums under his skin. Ryan’s laugh next to him brings him back to the table and out of his head.

Things change when the food comes out. Matt thinks it’s impressive he lasted that long.

“This looks so good,” Ross muses over his steak. It does look good. Matt picks the tomatoes off of his salad, keeping his gaze on the knife next to Ross’s hand. All of his senses are alight. He can almost hear Ross’s sleeve brush against the table when he makes to pick up his utensil.

It isn’t like Matt can’t control himself. It’s a decision he makes that leads him to half-standing in his seat and swatting the knife off of the table. It clatters to the floor. The memory of the same motion days ago echoes in his brain, rattles around his skull.

“Matt?” Ross says his name inquisitively, like he’s waiting for an explanation. What is that tone? Disappointment? Resentment?

There’s a million ways he could play it off, but with what feels like a million eyes on him now, it’s yet another choice of his to just not play it off at all. He mutters out a “sorry, excuse me” to the stranger beside him when he scoots his chair back and bolts for the exit. If he looked back, he’d see Ryan throwing his napkin onto the table to come after him, but he doesn’t look back until he’s made it to the parking lot.

“Matt.” Ryan calls when he’s close. He sees Matt’s in distress, breathing laboriously and hugging his shoulders, but he’s just past too angry to be kind. “Matt!”

“I know, Ryan!” he shouts back. “What did- what do you want from me, huh? I  _know_ I just fucked up. You don’t have to tell me.”

Ryan scoffs. “Where do you get off acting like that in public? In front of- TO your friends?”

“I know.”

“Clearly you don’t know, because you’re still acting like an asshole.”

“I’m upset, Ryan!” Matt shouts, though his voice shakes and his breath hitches like the dam’s about to burst. “Yeah, it was three days ago and I’m still thinking about it. Fucking sue me. Why aren’t you upset? Doesn’t seeing him make you upset?”

“Of course it makes me upset!” Ryan matches his volume. “Do you think you’re the only one going through this, Matt? Because you’re not. We were  _both_ there. I have a fucking _stab wound_ to show for it. I think about it every time I  move.  Every time I limp I can feel eyes on me, even if they don’t ask I  know they’re wondering why, and I can’t tell them. I can’t fucking tell _anyone.”_

“You can tell me,” Matt sobs. “Ryan, I’m trying to be here for you, but all you want to do is shut me out. How can you blame me-“

“You don’t want to actually talk about it!”

“-for feeling  _alone__, _Ryan?”

“Matt.” Ryan groans, dragging his hands down his face. “You wanna sit here and act like you’re coping better than me because I want to just move on, but I think you’re worse off. Because all you do is feel bad. You feel guilty. What happened _wasn’t_ our fault. You don’t seem to want to get over it. You want to wallow.”

“How do I get over it if I can’t address it?” Matt’s angry now. He wishes he could feel nothing. “I can’t face Ross because I think about how I killed him. You want me to just be okay with the fact that I killed our friend?”

“That wasn’t our friend!” Ryan shouts. “Matt, are you listening to yourself?”

“Do not even fucking tell me that you don’t know what I mean!”

“Of course I- Matt, this is like that fucking- the Hitler clone thing. You’re torturing Ross even though he didn’t actually do anything.”

Matt stops dead in his tracks. Ryan might think he made a breakthrough in his argument if it weren’t for the shocked look on Matt’s face.

“Dude.” Matt sniffles. “Seriously?”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Just as wrong as Arin was when he said it was like we dreamed-“

“Hold on.” Matt realizes immediately that he’s fucked up. “Arin knows?”

He takes a long moment before he nods, jaw set.

“How much does he know?”

“I had to explain why we’ve- why I’ve been so-“

“Why you’ve been so-?!” Ryan covers his face and groans, frustration present and clear. “See, this is what I mean. You’re only thinking about yourself. You’ve only been thinking about yourself this entire time. You keep saying you’re here for me, but then you’re not listening to me and what I think, and you’re acting like you’re all alone-“

“What are you talking about!” Matt cries. He’s very vaguely aware of other people in the parking lot moving swiftly to their cars, but he can’t care about them anymore. It’s only him and Ryan in the world now. Ryan stares him in the eyes and the dead look in them is frightening and grounding all at once.

“I am the one... I got us into that mess with my fucking...” Ryan speaks haltingly now, and the hitch of breath lets Matt know he’s close to his breaking point. “My incantation is what got us there. It’s my fault you’re so- and I can’t take it. All because I have a stupid fucking complex and I don’t think I’m important enough to anybody and I dared to say it out loud _one_ fucking time.”

Matt stares, mouth agape, for what feels like a long, long time. He’s dizzy with the knowledge that there’s a bound they’ve stepped now that they’d only toed before. Self deprecating jokes are one thing, but for the first time it really hits Matt that Ryan actually feels that way. Tears dry on his face and he fights the impulse to look away from his best friend’s watery eyes.

“Ryan, I think you’re important.”

“Shut up,” he says, breaking eye contact and turning away. Matt crosses the space between them, shaking his head.

“No. I’m not going to just let you feel like that.” He reaches to place his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, not unkindly. “You are so fucking important to me, how can you-“

“Stop touching me!” Ryan yells, jerking away. Matt does. He shuts down because Ryan does first. They reach an impasse, in all senses of the word.

This is when Arin enters the parking lot, jogging to meet them and stopping a few feet away, because the air exudes the need for space.

“I don’t know what the fuck exactly is going on with you two,” Arin says, “but you need to get your shit together. You do not get to hurt other people just because you’re hurt.”

“Did you tell him?” Matt asks. Ryan mutters something like “Jesus Christ” as he digs in his pockets.

Arin shakes his head. “Of course I didn’t. It’s not my story to tell.”

_Story_ _. _Matt scoffs internally, but externally, all he does is stare at the pavement.

“Sorry for everything,” Ryan mumbles nearly inaudibly, handing Arin a wad of bills. “We’re going home now.” Arin shoves the money in his pocket and points between the both of them accusingly.

“Sort all of this out before you come back to the office.”

He leaves them alone in the lot. Out of breath and overrun with anxiety, Matt looks at Ryan, desperate for some grounding.

Ryan regards him with such disdain that it makes him want to die. “Let’s go,” he says, jerking his thumb in the direction the car is. 

The drive is silent. The elevator ride is silent. Ryan’s walk directly to his bedroom is silent.

Matt waits for there to be no other sound in the apartment before he exits his room for the kitchen. He measures the ingredients carefully; four tablespoons of salt for twelve ounces of water. He won’t get all twelve down, but the ratio is what matters.

He sits cross-legged on the carpet of his bedroom. He’d made sure to have no distractions; even his cat is confined to the living room for the time being. He leans forward with his elbows on his knees and studies the glass, watching the salt particles drift through the cloudy liquid. A droplet of condensation runs down the side. He shouldn’t be hyperfocusing, but the more he thinks, the less ready he realizes he is.

Against all better judgment (or maybe it is his better judgment), he makes a call, not even considering the fact that it’s almost eleven at night. It rings the exact right amount of times for him to not give up and throw the phone at the wall.

“Hello?” comes Jackson’s raspy voice.

Matt inhales sharply. He didn’t even think about how to phrase this. “I need help.”

He can practically hear Jackson shooting out of bed. “What’s wrong?”

“No, I’m- fuck.” Matt sighs. He traces the rim of the glass with his forefinger. “I just need to know, um. How to control where I’m jumping to.”

“You want to jump again?” he asks, clearly confused. “Matt, what’s going on? Where are you?”

“I’m at home,” he says quietly, meekly. “Listen, everything’s fine, I just want to jump somewhere better. Just for a night. I’ll come back.”

A pause. “I’m coming over.”

“No, no!” Matt clamps his hand over his mouth at his sudden burst of volume. He speaks quieter. “Don’t come over. Ryan’s mad at me. I don’t want to make it worse. Please, Jackson, just help me out here.”

Jackson’s quiet for a minute, mumbling something with his mouth a touch too far from the receiver. Matt swirls the glass while he waits.

“Jacks-“

“You come here then,” Jackson says with finality. “I don’t want you alone right now. Want me to call you an Uber?”

“I’ll call it,” Matt says. “Be there soon.”

“Okay. See you.”

Matt hangs up, sets his phone down, and before he has a chance to rethink it, he chugs the saltwater.

He manages to get the whole glass down, though he’s dizzy by the end of it. He whispers to the room that he needs a softer dimension, where things are nicer. He closes his eyes and tries to let his mind drift.

Drift.  _Ryan had a point about us being unimportant._

Drift.  _I don’t think I’ll come back._

Drift.  _I’ve ruined everything here, anyways._

Vomit. _Vomit now. Gotta get up and vomit right now._

He pushes himself up off the floor as fast as he can. The only thing quicker than his body is his lurching stomach, but he gets to his bathroom just in time, collapsing to his knees and throwing up directly into the bowl.

It takes a few minutes and a few retches before he feels the slightest bit better. He curses himself as he recalls being warned not to try and jump on an empty stomach; he’d completely forgotten he’d barely touched his dinner.

Matt calls the Uber from the bathroom floor. He drinks real water while he waits for the driver to arrive, and then slips out of the apartment with his backpack (and Harrison’s jacket, when he almost passes by it) as quietly as possible.

Harrison answers the door, regarding him warmly. He calls over his shoulder, “Matt’s here.”

When he crosses through the doorway, Jackson appears and pulls him into a sincere hug, back-pats and all.

“Missed you too,” Matt says, rolling his eyes to Harrison’s snicker. Jackson lets him go, holding him at arms length by his biceps.

“Man.” He wolf-whistles. “You look like shit. What happened tonight?”

“And then he was mad because I told Arin,” Matt says, leaning forward on the couch again, “but he never said explicitly ‘I don’t want to tell people’ and it’s our  boss , of course I had to give some explanation because I’m being such a weird fucking baby about it.”

“Mhm,” Jackson prompts him to continue. Harrison wrings his hands as he listens.

“So then Arin came outside and told us to leave, and Ryan paid him for our part of dinner, and then we left. And Ryan hasn’t said anything to me since.”

“Hmm. And you thought jumping was going to fix that?”

Matt’s face flushes in embarrassment. “Well, no, but-“

“Listen.” Harrison taps Matt’s hand, insisting on obtaining eye contact. “You can’t run away from problems like this. You’ve got to face up to everything.”

“Have you been to your therapist since the jump?” Jackson asks.

“No, I see her on Thursdays.”

“Then you’ll just have to listen to our advice until then, which is probably just as good.” Harrison elbows his brother for the comment.

“It’s a bit simplistic to say ‘you  just have to talk about it.’ But it’s kind of true,” he muses. ”There’s speaking, and there’s the emotional labor of overcoming what kept you from speaking in the first place.”

“That is a pretty therapist thing to say.” Matt smiles, for the first time all night. He takes a handful of chips from the bag on the table.

“What did I tell you?” Jackson grins. He leans back with his arms behind his head, as if his job is complete now.

Harrison rolls his eyes. “Well, now you have to do the emotional labor part, and that bit kind of sucks. Y’know, the overcoming.”

“Yeah,” Matt says. He wipes his semi-sweaty hands on his pants and shakes his head. “So, that wasn’t the real Ross.”

“That wasn’t the real Ross,” Harrison repeats, holding up one finger.

“I need to listen to Ryan.”

“You need to  _hear_ Ryan.”

“I need to _hear_ Ryan.” Harrison holds up another finger and waits.

“I...” Matt squints. “I need to apologize?”

“And you need to apologize.” Harrison puts his hand down. “I know you’re hurt by this too, but everyone is. Once you put a discussion into motion and admit the piece of it that _is_ your fault, you can talk about it as an event instead of a pain you’re enduring. You know?”

Matt nods, slowly. “I’m just having trouble because... it’s like nobody wants to accept that I’m in pain in the first place. Like, I know that it wasn’t real to Ross or to Arin, but it was real to me.”

“It’s real to Ryan, too,” Jackson says. “He hasn’t said anything to me, but I know him. You know him. You both just react differently to the same hurt. He’s just fighting quieter.”

“Fuck.” Matt whines, rubbing his eyes. “I’ve been so shitty to him. I really have to apologize.”

“Well, you don’t right now, cause it’s almost two.” Jackson picks up an empty beer bottle from the table as he stands. “You can sleep here and I’ll drop you off at the office in the morning. Nine, right?”

“Yeah. Thanks, guys.” Matt smiles. Harrison stands too, leaning over to ruffle Matt’s hair playfully.

“Human relationships are already so fuckin’ weird. We really screw ourselves when we add shit to it.”

”Like living and working together.” Matt says.

“I was thinking the dimensional travel and murder parts of the situation, but yeah, that too.”

Me (2:13 AM)

Hey matt’s here for the night

(Read 2:15 AM)

Me (2:20 AM)

Just didn’t want you to worry come morning

(Read: 2:21 AM)

Ryan Magoogle (2:21 AM)

Yeah I heard him leave. Thanks.


	4. Chapter 4

Ryan isn’t in the editing bay with him, but Matt thinks it would be easier to have their one-on-one at home, so he doesn’t mind working alone for the time being. Though it’s a little bit concerning, because it’s almost time to take lunch, and he hasn’t seen Ryan at all today.

_It’s fine_, he tells himself. He just has to work until lunch, and then he can go and talk to Ross. So he waits for time to crawl by on its hands and knees. Before he can muster the resolve to stand up, Ross takes it upon himself to come to Matt, clearing his throat from the doorway to get his friend’s attention.

“Oh, shit- hey!” Matt curses himself for not being ready for this. He removes his headphones and swivels around in the chair. Ross is stood facing him with his arms behind his back and a firm frown set on his face. “Um. What’s up?”

“What’s up?” Ross repeats, mockingly.

Matt sighs, supposing he deserves this. “Listen, Ross. I’m super sorry about everything the past couple of days. I have some explaining to-“

“You’re afraid of me or something?”

He blinks, confused. “Afraid? Uh, well-“

“You think I’m gonna hurt you?” Ross steps forward, keeping his arms behind himself. “You think you’re gonna have to hurt me?”

“What the fuck?” Matt scrambles to stand from the chair and put more space between them. The other man turns as he moves to the side, making it impossible to see what he’s concealing. “Did Arin tell you about what happened?”

“Why don’t _you_ tell me?” Ross taunts, continuing his advance. “Tell me how I did it. Then you can tell me how you killed me.”

“No,” Matt shakes his head. His heart vibrates desperately in his chest.

“Right, right.” Ross stills and relaxes his arms then, and produces a chef’s knife from behind his back. He holds it loosely, dangling it by the handle. “Show me, then.”

Matt’s brain short circuits. He yells for Ryan and Ross laughs.

“Is this not what you wanted?” Ross growls, demonic, so unlike him it hurts - and he takes a firmer grip on the black handle. Matt lunges for him, hoping to wrestle the knife away, but Ross elbows and shoves him and he’s overpowered a little too easily.

“Ryan!” He tries again. “Arin!”

“Isn’t this what you wanted?” Ross says, again. The knife is pressed against his throat.

_Is this what I wanted? _ Matt wonders. Then something clicks in his head.

He shouts Ross’s name. And Ross comes running through the door, and his wide eyes lock onto the Other Ross - the Commander - and then Matt wakes up from his dream with a jolt.

“Hey, calm down, you’re fine.” Jackson pats his friend’s leg. Matt looks around wildly, and it takes a moment for him to realize he’s in a moving car, sweating bullets, and wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

“What the fuck is going on?” He looks in the backseat. His backpack isn’t there, nor is it between his legs. “Are we going to the office?”

Jackson sighs, keeping his eyes on the road. “So, here’s the thing: we made a jump.”

_“What?_ When did we- I don’t even remember-“

“It can be hard to remember the jump itself,” Jackson explains, “but you should remember, like, waking up this morning. We made the jump, wound up in the same apartment, and got into the car. Think you just dozed off.”

“I don’t remember any of it.” Matt looks out the window. One, two, three people on this side of the street. Jackson is a slow driver (“a safe driver,” as he’d call it), so it’s easier to count than with Ryan. “What’s up with this dimension?”

“It should be super close. I thought you’d like a chance to practice how you’re going to talk to Ross.” He can feel the distress radiating from his friend, so he continues, “This way, if you make a mistake, it’s not final. If it doesn’t go the way you want, you can call me and we’ll just dip out and you can redo it.”

Matt nods. He has to admit that it’s a smart idea, and he just knows he won’t do it right the first time. He allows Jackson to drive him the rest of the way without further fight, and thanks him when they pull up.

“Call me if something’s wrong and I’ll come back to get you,” Jackson says. Matt climbs out of the car and is about to shut the door, but he ducks his head back in at the last second.

“Wait, do you actually know what the difference is here?”

Jackson grins. “This is the dimension where Ross is the most kind and forgiving guy to ever exist.”

Matt nods because he can tell that’s the best explanation he’ll get. He heads inside and rushes past the front desk with the barest of cordials, dead set on completing the one thing he’s here to do. He doesn’t even stop when he’s brushing past Arin or Ryan in the hallway. The only thing on his mind is Ross.

And he finds him right away, sitting in his office with the door ajar. Matt raps his knuckles against the door politely, only pushing the door all the way open when Ross calls out a “come in.”

He looks up from his drawing tablet. He looks shocked to see Matt, but he smiles anyways. “Oh! Hey.”

“Hi,” Matt says, wringing his hands, suddenly overwhelmed by nerves. He closes the door behind himself and occupies one of the stray chairs that decorate the small office. “I want to talk to you.”

“Okay.” Ross puts his pen down and rotates the chair, giving his friend his full attention. His eyebrows are furrowed in a clearly concerned manner, which already has Matt feeling guilty.

“I don’t know if this is going to make any sense to you, but I’ve, uh.” Why was it so easy to explain to everyone else? “Um. I’ve been acting weird lately.”

“I’ve been worried,” Ross admits.

“I’m sorry.” Matt takes a deep breath and reminds himself that this is just a trial run. “The Tucker brothers taught Ryan and I how to jump dimensions, and we did it without them. So we ended up in this... weird place. You were there, and-“

“Wait, that’s cool!” Ross interrupts. “I didn’t know they could do that?”

“Yeah, I thought it was cool too. But then we were in a horrible dimension, like, the poster for a dystopian future.”

“Ooh.”

“And you were the leader.” Matt corrects himself unnecessarily, “The Commander. You tried to get Ryan and I to like... join you.”

“But I was evil?” Ross’s lopsided grin and nervous chuckle rubs Matt the wrong way. He isn’t taking it as seriously as he wants - but then he remembers that this Ross might not have really seen the extent of Matt’s strange behavior. This dimension might not have his outburst from last night’s dinner. He shakes his head and continues.

“Yeah. You hurt Ryan.” He clenches his jaw and breaks eye contact. “You stabbed him in the leg. He came back with that wound - it doesn’t like, stay there.”

“Oh.” Ross’s face dropped, all mischieivous glint immediately dissipated. “Is that why last night-“

“Fuck.”

“-with the knife- and then you guys left, and Arin seemed to know but wouldn’t explain-“

“I’m so sorry, Ross,” Matt drops his face into his hands, unable to look at him anymore. His voice breaks as he tries to explain. “In the other dimension, I- I had to protect Ryan, and you were some deranged- I had to fight back, I-“

“It’s okay, Matt.” Ross’s hand comes up to gently take one of Matt’s. He lets him pull it from his face, both coming down to rest on the table. Ross squeezes it comfortingly. “It’s okay. Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“No,” Matt laughs, sniffling. “But I should. I need to, I think. If you’re okay with hearing it.”

“Of course.” Ross has the sincerest look in his eyes, and even as the memory has his heart rate rising, Matt wonders how he ever felt afraid around him.

“I had to kill you to save myself and Ryan.” He pauses. “I stabbed you and watched you die. And I’ve been thinking about that since Saturday, like, nonstop. It’s the only thing I can think about, how I hurt you.”

“It’s not the fact that I stabbed Ryan?” Ross asks. Softly, curiously.

Matt blinks, turning the idea over in his head. Maybe that really isn’t it. The idea of losing Ryan terrified him for sure, but the thing that really stuck with him this entire time was his own actions, not Ross’s.

“It’s that, too, but yeah, it’s more what I did that scares me.” He nods, squeezing Ross’s hand back finally. “I killed you like it was nothing. Like we haven’t been friends for years.”

“Well, I know that I’d never intentionally hurt Ryan. Or you. And I know that _you’d_ never intentionally hurt _me.” _Ross tips his head to the side to catch Matt’s gaze, hoping to hold it. “You know that too, right?”

“Of course,” Matt says, and then it clicks. “Of course. I would never hurt  _you__._ I love you, man.”

“I love you too,” Ross laughs, genuinely. “Situations like that can fuck with people. I’m sorry you went through that, but you’re here now, and nothing like that will happen here. Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Again, I’m super sorry for being weird.”

“It’s all good. Thanks for talking to me about it. I really appreciate that.”

“Yeah. I’ll let you get back to work now.” Matt stands up, politely pushing his chair in and everything. They exchange goodbyes, and he sets off to find Ryan, hoping it goes just as well.

He finds him in the editing bay, as he suspected he might.

“Hey-“ he begins, startling Ryan out of his concentration on his work.

“Shit, dude. You scared me.” Ryan pauses the video he’s editing and takes his headphones off. “What’d you get up to last night?”

Is that worry in his voice? “I went to Jackson and Harrison’s.” He pauses, collecting his thoughts. “Listen-“

“I’m sorry, Matt.”

“No, shut up. I’m sorry.”

“You shut up.” It’s nothing but warm from him, but he insists on speaking first. “I was a dick last night. I shouldn’t have just... not talked to you. I  _have_ been pushing you away. It’s just difficult for me to talk about hard stuff.”

“Hah, hard stuff.” Matt snickers and is met with a good-natured eye roll from his friend. He shakes his head and presses on. “You don’t have to be sorry. You were right, I wasn’t listening to how you were dealing. I just felt like you should be dealing with it the way I was, which was by needing to talk about it. But I wasn’t talking to the right people about it.”

“No, wait. I don’t want you to think you can’t talk-“

“No, I know I can talk to you. Don’t worry. But what I needed was to talk to Ross, and I did, and I’m still anxious and I probably still won’t like the sight of knives for a while, but I do feel better. I feel so much better. But that’s not what you need to feel better, and that’s okay.”

Ryan nods. “I shouldn’t just shut you out though. I felt like it was my fault that you had to go through all of that, and I didn’t want to own up to it. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. I forgive you. I’m sorry for freaking out at dinner and yelling at you in a parking lot.”

“I forgive you, too.”

Matt inhales deeply and exhales, pure relief washing over him. “Ah, man. This went way better than I thought it would. I wish this was real.”

Ryan squints. “Huh?”

Matt pulls out his phone to call Jackson. “I- okay, I gotta be honest: I’m not _your_ Matt. Yours is a slightly off dimension from the one I’m from. I came to try apologizing because I thought I’d fuck up, but I didn’t, so now I’m ready for the real thing.” He taps Jackson’s name.

Ryan snorts. “You jumped?”

“I guess so. I don’t remember doing it, but Jacks-“ Matt stops when it clicks in his mind. He sighs and listens to it ring.

“Hey bud,” Jackson answers, far too casually. “How did everything go?”

“Did you lie to me? About jumping?”

“Um.” Jackson chuckles over the line, and Ryan giggles in front of him. “It went good though, right?”

“I’m going to kill you. How did I not...?” Matt groans. Ryan giggles into his hand.

“I don’t know, man. I told you it’s the dimension where Ross is the nicest guy on the planet. That just, y’know, happens to be our dimension. Anyways, have fun at work, bye!”

The line clicks. Ryan waits expectantly.

“He was, indeed, fucking with me.” Matt says, deadpan. Ryan nods, barely suppressing a grin.

“It would seem so.” He picks up a wired hard drive and slides it across the desk. “That one’s for you. Those are due Friday.”

Matt thanks him, they both put on their headphones, and they get to work. Matt opens up the first file - the sound for a guest video featuring Ross. He opens it in the operating system’s preview, just to check it, and on comes Ross’s cheerful voice. He’s saying something about feeling excited about collaborating with Arin again.

The important thing is that Matt only feels a twinge of nerves when he hears his voice, and he knows it will only get easier with time. He smiles to himself and starts importing the footage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you made it all this way you’re epic and I love you


End file.
